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T3. 



WORLD'S FAIRS 



UNIVERSAL EXPOSITIONS THE 

MILESTONES ALONG THE 

HIGHWAY OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 



[Address of Dr. Selim H. Peabody before the Trans 
Mississippi Congress, St. Paul, Minn., August 21, 1902.] 



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DR. SELIM H. PEABODY. 

Dr. Selirh H. Peabody is of New England stock and a grad- 
uate of the University of Vermont. The most of his life has been 
spent in educational work. In 1880 he was selected as President 
of the University of Illinois, which important position he held until 
1 89 1, when he resigned to join the staff of the World's Columbian 
Exposition as Chief of the Department of Liberal Arts. At the 
close of the Columbian Exposition he prepared the voluminous 
report of the Director-General. He was editor and statistician to 
the Commissioner-General representing the United States at the 
Paris Exposition of 1900. He was Chief of the Department of 
Liberal Arts at the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and was 
Superintendent of Awards at the Exposition at Charleston. He 
has written various educational works and was the Editor-in-Chief 
of the International Cyclopedia when that work was first issued. 



JAN 25 1903 
D. ofD* 



UNIVERSAL EXPOSITIONS THE MILE- 
STONES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS 
OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 

Two years ago, at Houston, Texas, Governor Francis of 
Missouri addressed this body, setting before it in lucid and per- 
suasive terms the proposition which the city and the good people 
of St. Louis were then making as to the opening in that staunch 
and conservative city of an Universal International Exposition, a 
veritable and fully-equipped World's Fair. Governor Francis was 
then planning his campaign and arraying his forces preparatory to 
urging the request of the city of St. Louis and the State of Mis- 
souri before the Congress of the nation. The proposition was that 
the citizens of St. Louis should raise a subscription of five million 
dollars, that the City of St. Louis should give its bonds for five 
million dollars more, and that thereupon the general government 
should furnish other five million dollars — the State of Missouri to 
add another million on its own account — and that upon the secure 
foundation thus provided the City of St. Louis should proceed to 
promote, install, inaugurate and maintain before the people of 
these United States a World's Fair, commemorative of the pur- 
chase of that part of our country familiarly known as the Louisiana 
Purchase. 

There was, I believe, at the time of Governor Francis' speech 
a slightly disturbing question of precedence, each of the parties to 
the tripartite agreement being desirous that the others should take 
the first step. The venerable uncle who watches over the nation's 
financial movements insisted that the City of St. Louis should first 
demonstrate an actual and bona fide subscription, whereupon his 
gift should be forthcoming, while the city was just a little shy of 
putting up so large an ante until she was quite sure that her ven- 
erable relative really intended to come into the game. 

The case seems likely to present a situation similar to one 
proposed in a piece of legislation said to have been offered in the 

3 



General Assembly of the State of Illinois. The bill was framed to 
formulate the procedure of two railway trains when approaching 
each other at a crossing of the ways. It provided that in such a 
case each of the trains should, before reaching the crossing, come 
to a full stop and remain standing until the other had completely 
passed. A deadlock is a bit of parliamentary machinery which 
permits each of the opposing parties to prevent the other from do- 
ing what it desires to accomplish. Whenever the two contestants 
really wish to do business the deadlock will no longer function. In 
the case in question, St. Louis raised her subscription, the city 
secured its loan, and the government donation was assured. Upon 
the substantial foundation of $17,000,000, thus put in hand or 
made available, the earnest prosecution of the great enterprise has 
been begun. An army of laborers and mechanics is aleady at 
work, in charge of architects and artificers skilled in the arts of 
design, construction and decoration. Each day sees a new edi- 
fice planting its feet firmly in the soil or lifting heavenward its stal- 
wart columns, its swelling domes and aspiring towers. A year 
has been added to the time designated for the completion of its 
structures and the preparation of the exhibits that shall fill them, 
and in this respect surely time is money. 

The President has issued his proclamation, inviting the na- 
tions of the earth to participate. Many have responded, and the 
eye blessed with prophetic vision may already descry in all quarters 
of the habitable globe the concentric movement begun, which will 
in due time gather at this center a World's Fair representing all the 
nations of the earth, with a complete assemblage of its arts, its in- 
dustries and- its peoples. 

The Exposition commemorating the purchase which, directly 
or indirectly, assured to the United States of America that broad 
domain which extends from the river discovered by De Soto — that 
fountain of perpetual youth which his fading sight failed to recog- 
nize — to the Ocean of Perpetual Peace, first seen by Balboa from 
the heights of Darien, is an assured fact. The renown of its vast 
magnitude, of its thorough completeness, and of its transcendent 
beauty, shallfill the ears and inspire the hopes of all the nations of 
the earth. 

The first great success of the enterprise has been achieved 
When making this "assertion in this distinguished presence, I am 
permitted to express the thanks which the management of the 

4 



St. Louis World's Fair cordially offers for the efficient assistance 
rendered by this Congress, as well in the halls of the Congress 
of the United States as in its own peculiar field, the Trans- 
Mississippi country, at all times and in every form — an assistance 
which has stimulated effort and insures success. 

I need but a suggestion to recall to your thoughts the com- 
petitive instinct implanted in the human soul as an universal stim- 
ulus to human activity. In whatever field of thought or of effort 
one may be employed, he is actuated by an imperious desire to 
excel, either for the simple hunger for mastery, or because of sub- 
sidiary benefits alluring in their nature. The desire to demon- 
strate the superior merit of one's work, or the dominant power of 
one's country, gives an unfailing stimulus to human effort. So 
in times of war men fight battles; in times of peace they develop 
expositions. 

In old Greece the Exposition came by Olympiads ; men ran, 
they wrestled, they declaimed, they sang. They won awards, not 
of gold or of bronze, but symbolic prizes better worth the palm of 
victory — the olive crown, wreaths of bay or of myrtle. They wor- 
shipped the ideal, and were content with the symbols of victory. 

In other lands and at other times men gathered for purposes 
essentially commercial. To some central point on the plains of 
eastern Russia merchants brought from far wares which they ex- 
pected to exchange for other objects of utility or luxury, hoping 
for gain. The toiling and weary traveler, outward bound, con- 
tinually turned over in thought the question: " Can I sell my bur- 
den at the Fair? " Homeward bound : " Can I sell my burden at 
my house? " Always: " What profit can I gain? " 

Such a form of exposition was only an ephemeral market. 
After a few days, or weeks at most, it would dissolve, vanish, per- 
haps to show itself after another period. 

The World's Great Fairs, the grand gatherings, dating from 
that of 185 1, held in London, under the patronage of Prince Albert 
of worthy memory, differed essentially from such occasional mar- 
kets in their inception, their development, the personality of their 
attendance, and, therefore, in their results. In them the purely 
commercial element, never wholly eliminated, is purposely made 
subordinate. The exhibitor hopes ultimately to sell his wares, but 
especially he seeks to know the true place of his goods in the 
swelling wave of competition — to learn who can offer the best and 

5 



the cheapest, and why. The buyer comes, not to buy so much as 
to learn what was best to buy. Persons, communities and na- 
tions meet in earnest competition, each hoping to win the insignia 
of merit for quality of product or merit of design. Let the honor 
rest upon the most worthy. The motto of ruder days remains 
good — "Let him get who has the power; let him keep who 
can" — but the significance is changed. The gross supremacy of 
brute and material force is replaced by the subtler, more ethereal, 
more masterful supremacy of divinely-born intelligence. 

The fair has assumed a new character and a nobler aspect ; 
it is a World's Fair. The articles exposed become the best of 
their kind. The farmer by Ayr or Tweed, or by the Illinois, 
thinks far otherwise of the bullock he sends to the monthly market 
to ^ell for what it will bring than of the head of his herd which he 
exposes at the annual display to exemplify his skill as a breeder of 
superior animals. By a natural process of selection, only the best 
is offered for competition. The exhibits come from far wider 
circles, remoter regions. As the fittest survivors of many well- 
contested conflicts, they meet for final judgment before the court 
of highest resort. 

Mounting thus from one altitude to the next, we reach the 
elevated plateau where we find that a World's Exposition has a 
function far higher than the discrimination of sweepstakes. The 
individual has become only a significant fraction occupying a place 
in the larger mosaic. The exposition stands at the meeting 
of the world's highways, where gather the nations of the earth, 
burdened each with the evidences of its newest and noblest 
achievements. 

The World's Fair is an epitome of the world's progress ; a 
history and a prophecy. The latest discoveries, the newest inven- 
tions, the triumphs in art, in science, in education, in the solution 
of social and even religious problems, are here arrayed. Here 
stand the most effective dynamo ; the swiftest locomotive ; the 
telescope piercing the remotest heavens ; the most productive 
printing press ; the most destructive artillery ; machines that spin, 
weave, set type, thresh grain, mine coal, drill rock, fashion rail- 
way bars; the artist's dream on canvas or in marble, in clustering 
column or aspiring dome, in woven fabric or decorated vase ; the 
flower's effulgence or the fruit's alluring blush ; all products of the 
soil, the mine, the sea ; whatever testifies to the industry, the 

6 



skill, the creative and almost divine power of human thought when 
stimulated to its most earnest endeavors. 

Thus at each latest exposition doth Mother Earth make a new 
inventory of her acquisitions. Thus does she erect at each station 
in her march towards the stars a monument inscribed with a record 
of her victories. 

Her exhibits, fascinating even in their enumeration, are the 
accepted indices of her forward and resistless movement. They 
are mountain summits, towering above the masses standing at 
their foundation. They are the flashing waves that run along 
the sands before the surges of the advancing tide. They mark the 
day and the man recorded on the historic page. On such a day 
Galileo was the first to see the moons of Jupiter. On such a day 
Newton formulated the law of gravitation. On such a day Steven- 
son steamed away on the " Rocket," Morse signaled " What hath 
God wrought," Ericsson's " Monitor" fought her first battle, Bes- 
semer cast his first ingot. They are the standard-bearers who pre- 
cede the embattled host ; but the host constantly aligns itself upon 
the guidons as they are newly advanced. This upheaval of the 
mountain mass, this silent swelling of the tide, this surging push 
of the line of battle that will not be denied, each is significant of a 
vastly greater and more pervasive force. 

It is asserted that no essential change has been made in the 
steam engine devised by Watt more than a century since, but the 
engines which drive an ocean steamship, or those of the locomo- 
tive whose miles keep tally with the minutes, have absorbed in 
their designs the fittest of a thousand improving devices. 

The daily paper, that comes to us for a cent; the click of the 
typewriter ; the ring of the telephone ; the phosphor of the match ; 
the oil of the rock; the rail of steel, that insures safer and swifter 
transit beneath the throbbing steam ; or the viewless vibrations of 
the electric wave — these show how constantly the discovery of 
yesterday becomes the necessity of to-day, best serving the wants 
of a waiting world after it has received the improving analysis of 
an unnumbered host, whose labors for the most part will be un- 
honored and unsung. 

The great expositions have stood like milestones along the high- 
way of human progress. Many of them have been notable for the 
first general display of new and striking inventions. Thus, in 1878, 
the dynamo, with its sequel, the electric light and the telephone. 

7 



furnished the newest sensations ; in 1889, such engineering struc- 
tures as the Forth Bridge and the Eiffel Tower were notable ; in 
1 893 the great engines of modern warfare for land or sea service 
were prominent ; in 1900 the automobile made its most effective 
appearance; and in 1904 the aeromotor bids fair to be the most 
startling attraction. 

In this enumeration we have named only certain things of strik- 
ing and universal interest. All along the line of exhibits, and scat- 
tered through all departments, on each occasion multitudes of in- 
ventions of admitted practical value were for the first time brought 
to general attention. Thus the exposition becomes a great clear- 
ing-house for the exchange of new, startling and progressive ideas, 
and becomes a means for their widest and swiftest distribution. 

The World's Fair is not only an epitome of the world's pres- 
ent condition ; in its historic phase it records the steps by which 
the culmination has been reached. But the world's progress may 
be illustrated in another fashion. It is said that the starlight of a 
cloudless sky consists of radiant beams representing numberless 
historic ages. The light from one star occupies three years in its 
flight before it enters our eye ; that from another has been journey- 
ing a thousand years ; each ray has been coming for a time deter- 
mined by the remoteness of the celestial body where its vibrations 
began. Hence, if one of these rays should be conceived to bring 
a message from its distant star, that message would be determined 
by something that occurred at that star when the light set forth 
on its journey ages ago, and the accumulation of these records 
would be the gathering of chapters of superlatively ancient history. 

In each of the last two International Expositions earth's folk 
were present from the remotest regions. To Chicago each quar- 
ter of the globe furnished its contingent. Aboriginal tribes came 
from the arctic zone and from the southern ocean; from* North 
American forests and from the heart of Africa. The Aryan, the 
Mongolian, the Semitic, the Malaysian, met and mingled until the 
Pentecostal miracle was outdone. 

From all these exhibits, each a type, might have been arranged 
the gamut of civilization ; at the beginning the Dahoman, Sitting 
Bull, the Quackuhls ; then the Eskimo, the Laplander, the tiny 
Javanese, the Bedouin, the Brahmin and the Parsee of India, Per- 
sians, Cingalese, Siamese, Chinese, Japanese ; then Turk, Bulgar- 
ian, Greek, Pole, all people from Central and Southern America; 



finally, all peoples of the United States and Europe. While the 
■exposition thus set forth the peculiarities of every land and of 
every clime, it illustrated also in living forms every phase of human 
progress, from days before those of the Pharaohs and of Confucius 
,to the moment when the President of the United States, by a touch 
of his finger, released all the sprites that were awaiting his signal 
of emancipation. 

The Exposition of 1900 of Paris culminated in the grand fete 
given in its magnificent Salle des Fetes, on the occasion of its dis- 
tribution of awards. Upon a broad platform at one side of the 
spacious apartment were seated the President of France, his min- 
isters and the ambassadors and commissioners of all visiting nations. 
This august body was fringed by the most curiously notable gath- 
ering of native soldiers from all French Colonies, dependencies, 
.and protectorates, of all colors and statures, quaintly uniformed 
and fancifully armed. Upon the opposite side of the vast amphi- 
theater were grouped in splendid effulgence the representatives of 
all the nations and all the groups which had participated in the 
Exposition. From the floor by ranged steps that led to the lofty 
.gallery rose the serried ranks in gorgeous uniforms, bearing aloft 
princely banners with the ensigns and emblems of every art and 
•craft. Nothing more splendid, nothing so significant could be im- 
agined than was witnessed on this arena more famous than the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold. This splendid array was fitly pre- 
sented in an apartment which for magnificence of design and for 
beauty of decoration stood without a peer or parallel. 

Considered with reference to its demonstration of existing life 
throughout the world, as an epitome of present science and past 
history the World's Fair is the grandest and most exhaustive of all 
encyclopedias. 

But, says a student, appalled with its magnitude and weary 
■with its investigations, "the burden is too great, the task is too 
stupendous, I can never master its multitudinous details." 

Do not attempt it. You do not sit down to read the diction- 
ary. Even the matter-of-fact Scots woman found the dictionary 
iull of braw stories, but unco short. Nobody takes the encyclo- 
pedia in course, not even Charles Dudley Warner's Encyclopedia 
of the World's Literature. The merit of these works is that they 
offer to show you the things you want, when you want them. 
They are to be consulted, not devoured. 

9 



So it is in the study of an exposition. Learn broadly what it 
contains, then discriminate carefully the subjects to which you will 
give your attention. 

The great expositions which have made luminous the last half 
of the nineteenth century were masterful instructors. They 
demonstrated the attainments which had been achieved ; they 
pointed the way to future effort and farther success. 

In more instances than one the history of the great expositions 
records their power to startle nations from fancied security into 
new and vigorous action. The surprises of the Exposition pro- 
moted by Prince Albert in 185 1 are not yet forgotten. It was 
there made evident that in certain particulars the people of the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland did not maintain t he- 
supremacy which they had long fancied was their own, and a com- 
mission of Parliament was directed to report upon the facts and 
their causes. In due time important educational reforms were in- 
stituted, and the agitation found a responsive echo in the United 
States, to which may be attributed the foundation of so many great 
technological and industrial schools in our own country. 

The art exhibits at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 were a 
revelation to the masses of the American people. From them 
flowed an inspiration that founded art schools, and engrafted art 
instruction upon many of our school systems, followed by a genuine 
revival of plastic, pictorial and descriptive art that enriches all our 
life public and private. 

The architecture of the Exposition of 1893 springing up with 
the swiftness of an exhalation and with a simulated solidity that 
emulated the massiveness of Athenian temples, reared a city whose 
magnificent grandeur was the delight of all nations. 

The millions who wandered through the thoroughfares of the 
Chicago Exposition, who skimmed the lagoons in launch or gon- 
dola, and consciously or unconsciously absorbed the beauty and 
the art revealed by decorated walls and towers and domes, carried 
to their homes impulses whose benificent results have already 
borne seed a hundred fold. 

The series of great expositions which we have thus rapidly 
considered, includes eight, one in England, five in France and two 
in the United States. If I were permitted to choose the word 
most exactly fitting the function of these expositions in their rela- 
tions to the world, that word is Educative. Not exclusively, but 

10 



eminently, have these expositions been the educators of the world. 
Each in turn has learned from its predecessors, one might almost 
say its ancestors, lessons which in expanded form are transmitted 
to its successors. 

But for the merit of a thoroughly educative exhibit the late 
Exposition at Paris was without a peer or parallel. Its classifica- 
tion was a decided advance upon anything hitherto developed. 
The method of making wherever possible an active exhibit replace 
the former still exhibit was worthy of all praise. More than usual, 
though perhaps not as much as might have been, the divisions of 
the classification were characterized by some common informing 
element about which things might be grouped. There is no dis- 
coverable reason why rye-flour, palm leaf hats, ten-penny nails and 
jewelry should be grouped together, because they all happen to be 
manufactured articles. An intense interest surrounds the methods 
which allow visitors to see, whenever possible, the methods and the 
machinery by which things are made. 

As to buildings, they were finished and decorated ; the instal- 
lations within them were always effectively arranged ; and in the 
higher lines of thought and its illustration exhibits were fully 
developed and adequately presented. The encyclopedia had a 
multitude of new chapters, and the older ones were rewritten, 
presenting the latest analysis. 

In certain ^instances her buildings were superior to any other 
ever built for exposition purposes. These were the palaces of fine 
arts, greater and lesser, built of stone, steel and glass in the high- 
est style of French architecture, beautiful and enduring ; and the 
audience room called the Salle des Fetes, unique in form, grand in 
proportions, and decorated by every art that the French have 
carried to perfection, could hardly be excelled in beauty of design 
or fitness for its purpose. The Exposition of 1900 was character- 
ized by completeness of design, fit adjustment of methods, thor- 
oughness of preparation, excellence of arrangement, and perfection 
in detail as in ensemble. They will be wise men who can better 
its work, from start to finish. 

In studying the precedents shown by the other great World's 
Fairs it is interesting to observe their development, as indicated 
by several important items. It was reasonable to expect that each 
should represent a greater area of enclosure, a greater area cov- 
ered by roof, more elaborate and exhaustive preparation involving 

11 



the expenditure of more money, and that its benefits should be 
enjoyed by an ever increasing throng of visitors. It is not my 
purpose to harass my hearers with masses of statistics, but in a few 
points I wish to show that those who are planning the coming 
Exposition have considered these points and are making adequate 
preparation for the ever cumulative needs of an universal and 
international World's Fair. 

The areas under roof at some of the successive Fairs were as 
follows : 

London, . 1851, . 21 acres. 

Paris, . . 1867, . ' 37 acres. 

Philadelphia, 1876, . 56 acres. 

Paris, . . 1889, . . 75 acres. 

Chicago, . 1893, . 200 acres. 

Paris, . . 1900, . . 125 acres. 

St. Louis, . 1904, . 250 acres. 

The expense incurred in several of the exhibits was : 
At Paris in 1867, . $ 4,000,000 

At Philadelphia in 1876, . . 8,500,000 

At Chicago in 1893, . 19,000,000 had been 

expended in September, 1892, and the disbursements to June 1, 

1894, were $27,250,000. 

The cost of the St. Louis Fair is yet to be ascertained. At 
present there is a strong probability that expenditures will exceed 
those of any other World's Fair. 

As to the attendance of visitors, we find the following: 



London, 


1851, 


6,000,000 


Paris, 


. 1867, . 


8,500,000 


Philadelphia, 


1876, 


10,000,000 


Paris, 


. 1878, . 


. 13,000,000 


Paris, 


1889, 


25,000,000 


Chicago, 


. 1893, . 


. 28,000,000 


Paris, 


1900, 


48,200,000 



The facts which we have hastily laid before you are such as 
impress themselves upon all exposition managers and compel them 
to mould their actions accordingly. 

The smaller, local expositions have been content to fill their 
space with such exhibits as would in themselves be attractive,, the 

12 



exhibitors having been induced to pay for space. Such a thing as 
completeness in the exhibits of a department was impracticable 
from the nature of things. In a World's Fair, encyclopedic and 
universal, the desirability of illustrating all possible phases of an 
art or a science becomes apparent and impressive, and will evoke 
the highest skill in those who have to promote and install the ex- 
hibits, in such an administration as will avoid redundancy, supply 
deficiencies, and will so arrange exhibits as to cause them to sup- 
plement and illustrate each other. A skillfully arranged depart- 
ment becomes a great mosaic, each element filling a place defi- 
nitely determined by its inherent relationships, and not an acci- 
dental one like that of the beads on a rosary. 

Another most important lesson, but one not easily made effec- 
tive under the exhuberant pressure of American exhibitors, is that 
an exhibit becomes impressive and instructive, not by its magni- 
tude, but by its quality. An exhibit may easily smother itself by 
its own multiplicity of detail. A thousand bushels of wheat from 
one harvest can teach the enquirer no more than a single measure 
thereof. One singing lute may in the exquisite subtility of its har- 
mony surpass all others of the world ; this fact will appear when 
it has been laboriously compared, not with each lute ever made, 
but only with the few known to. have surpassing merit. Hence it 
becomes evident that the encyclopedic collection presented for 
consideration and study at an Universal Exposition should consist, 
not of a bewildering multitude of mediocre things, nor even of 
objects comparatively worthy, but of materials carefully chosen 
for their surpassing excellence. A worthy exhibit of wheat, for 
example, from the prairies of one of the Dakotas would show, not 
a sackful from every man's granary, so exactly alike that without a 
private mark no exhibitor could prove his own sample, but a few 
specimens carefully chosen for peculiar quality. For example, one 
bushel shown at Charleston from a New Mexican ranch, and weigh- 
ing 66£ pounds, availed more than all the other wheat shown at 
that Exposition. 

The Louisiana Purchase World's Fair has the purpose, as it 
has the opportunity, to gather and install a series of exhibits in its 
various departments that shall surpass any of its illustrious prede- 
cessors 

It has a site artistically adapted to the display of the grand 
structures already lifting their serried battlements and lofty towers 

13 



toward the over-arching sky. The scheme of these buildings will 
rise before the observer, gradation after gradation, until it culmi- 
nates in the noble art building crowning the summit with its magni- 
ficent proportions, the whole interwoven into one grand and har- 
monious prospect. These buildings will offer under roof an extent 
of more than 250 acres, an area adequate to an orderly classified 
and educative arrangement of the most full and complete presen- 
tation of exhibits drawn from every quarter of the wide earth, that 
the world has yet seen. Knowing that at each successive fair the 
world has accumulated a larger assemblage of objects worthy to 
claim the inspection and careful study of the people, those who 
plan the areas of display, are furnished room according to their 
needs. 

The Fair will be international, as the nations of the earth have 
in large degree already signified their acceptance of the invitation 
offered by the President under the authority of Congress. The 
Fair will be universal, its material drawn from all the regions of 
the earth. It will be encyclopedic, each subject presented in an 
orderly, classified and exhaustive arrangement. It will be in the 
highest sense educative. Passing leisurely and thoughtfully through 
its vast halls, observing, reflecting, comparing, the judicious ob- 
server will have acquired more information, in a form easier to 
be remembered and better adapted for after-consideration, than 
he could gather in many years of fatiguing travel, costly both as 
to time and money. He does not need to traverse the wide 
world ; the world is brought systematically before him. This is 
the unspeakable gift which the Louisiana Purchase Exposition will 
offer to all its visitors, and especially to the citizens of the Trans- 
Mississippi, in whose domain this last and greatest World's Fair 
has already planted the standards of its vast encampment. 

The Trans-Mississippi, an empire in itself, spans the Republic 
from the boundary of the Canadian forests to the shores of the 
American Mediterranean, and from the Father of Waters to the 
Western Sea. Some present remember when the most of their in- 
formation concerning this half of the United States was derived 
from Cooper's Astoria, which was the story of Lewis and Clark's 
Journey from St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, or 
from the descriptions of the Pacific Coast and its commerce in the 
hides which formed its only export, found in Dana's "Two Years 
Before the Mast." The maps in the geographies of those days 

14 



marked the southern part of this great domain as Llano Estacado, 
the staked plain ; another part as the American desert, and they 
squandered the Rocky Mountains promiscuously over all the rest. 
This vast area is now occupied by twenty-three States and Terri- 
tories, with an indefinite capacity of making more. 

What can this great Trans-Mississippi do for the Louisiana 
Purchase World's Fair? 

i. It can do its part, a great part, indeed, towards making 
the Fair what it has undertaken to be, a compendium, an epitome 
of the best things which each of your States, Territories, Cities, 
communities, have achieved. No part of the Union is more richly 
endowed with nature's choicest gifts, than are, each in its way, the 
States of the Trans-Mississippi. One is rich in wheat, another in 
corn, or in cotton, or in sugar, in silver, in gold, in copper, in 
apples, in fruits, in big trees, in the scarped canyons of rivers, in 
snow-crowned mountains. It is occupied by people notable for 
intelligence, enterprise, determination and success. 

Out of all of these things, with the fascinating method of 
manipulation which you possess, you can present exhibits of pre- 
cious things which will delight the dazzled eyes of a waiting world. 
Yet why do I say this — urging you to action ? You need no urg- 
ing, for you are already preparing these exhibits, for which the 
expanded halls already described will scarcely find room. 

2. You can boom the World's Fair. Having taken pains to 
inform yourselves of the earnest purposes of those who are arrang- 
ing its most intricate details, of the lofty ideals as to its quality 
that are ever uppermost in their thoughts, of the wide experience 
they bring to bear upon devising and executing its various work, 
you will be convinced of the absolute fidelity of the representa- 
tions made you. You will present these views to your friends and 
neighbors, until the whole communities where you dwell are leav- 
ened with the desire to see for themselves the marvels of this last 
and greatest demonstration of the world's work. 

3. You can come yourselves, bringing with you your wives, 
your children, your neighbors, and the stranger within your gates. 



15 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



010 072 494 7 



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